


We're Only An Illusion

by flipflop_diva



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, F/M, Post-Finale, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It changes everything when you find out someone you trust isn't who you thought they were — every memory, every moment, every encounter. For Skye, finding out Ward is Hydra is a hard pill to swallow. But not everything is always as it seems. Set during most of Season 1 of Agents of SHIELD. Spoilers through the finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Avengers Reverse Big Bang](http://avengers-rbb.livejournal.com/) on LJ. See my artist, crescent_gaia's, beautiful fanmix and art [here](http://crescentfanfic.livejournal.com/43602.html).
> 
> Liz, thank you for letting me write this story for you! I knew the second I saw the prompt that I wanted to claim it. I hope it's what you were expecting ;)

**PART ONE**

No, no, no, no, no.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be true.

No. She wouldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

But the cold penny pressing into her palm and the drop of blood on her hand told her otherwise. 

Ward was Hydra.

Hydra.

_Hydra._

Skye’s hands flew to her mouth, stifling a cry. Her mind spun, the pieces falling together.

Her first week at SHIELD, alone with Ward.

_“Training rule number one. Are you ready?”_

_“I’m ready. Lay it on me.” Skye held up her hands, encased in boxing gloves, her focus on her C.O. She punched her leg into the air, like she was doing karate, in a show of taking down an invisible bad guy, to prove her point._

_“It’s not about fighting,” Ward told her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and at his words, he cocked his head to the side, keeping his eyes on her. “It’s about knowledge. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do because it’s the right thing to do in the end to get you where you need to be.”_

_Skye frowned at him. “Okay,” she said. “Great. I thought you were supposed to teach me to fight.”_

_“I’m training you how not to be killed.”_

The time she caught him up at four in the morning, sitting on the couch on the Bus with a drink in hand, staring at his phone, worry all over his face.

_“Penny for your thoughts?”_

_Ward’s head shot up. “Skye. I didn’t hear you. Why aren’t you asleep?”_

_“Why aren’t you?”_

_He shook his head, stuffing the phone in his pocket. “Just thinking about an old friend.”_

_“Want to share?”_

_“Not really. He wants me to do something. It’s just … a little harder than I thought.”_

_Skye shrugged. “Maybe you shouldn’t do it.”_

_“Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not right.”_

_“Hmmm,” Skye said, and then grinned. “More wise words from Ward?”_

_“All words from Ward are wise.”_

_She snorted. “Yeah. Right.”_

On the way to the Hub, the knowledge of Hydra fresh in their minds. Standing together, waiting, as they flew closer.

_“Skye.” She heard his voice in her ear, then his fingers pressing against her wrist. She turned her head. The way he was looking at her …_

_“We’re going to be okay, right?” she said, almost desperately. “This is all going to be okay? We’re going to find Simmons, and we’re going to be okay?”_

_“Skye, listen to me.” He leaned in close to her, so close their foreheads were almost touching. His eyes searched hers. “Whatever happens out there,” he said, “I need you to trust me, okay?”_

_“I do trust you.”_

_“I know you think you do.”_

_“What does that mean? Of course I …”_

_“Skye …” His fingers covered her mouth, stopping her words. “Things aren’t always what they seem, okay? Just trust me.”_

_“You mean like Hydra?” she whispered, though that seemed obvious._

_His fingers slipped from her mouth down her arm and to her hand. He squeezed it._

_“Something like that.”_

And then today.

Oh, god, just today.

Skye pressed her hands harder against her mouth, the urge to vomit never so strong.

_His lips pressed against hers, his fingers in her hair._

_“I will never hurt you,” he whispered. “I need you to believe that.”_

_She pulled back. The look on his face … the pain … the doubt._

_“Why wouldn’t I believe that?”_

_“I don’t want to lose you.”_

_“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re in this together.”_

She looked around. She had to get out of here. She had to find Coulson. And Simmons. And Fitz. And May. And Trip.

She had to tell them. She had to warn them.

This couldn’t be happening.

How was this happening?

Ward was Hydra.

He was _Hydra_.

•••

If there was one thing she was good at, it was thinking on her feet. She had been doing it for as long as she could remember. 

Stay calm. Keep focused. Do what you have to do.

“Emotions just get in the way,” Ward had told her once during training. At least he hadn’t been wrong about that.

And now, the one thing she had to do was stay alive. Stay alive and get help.

Put the penny back. Leave a message for Coulson to find. Pretend everything was okay. Pretend she still had feelings for him. Pretend those feelings were something other than the disgust they really were.

“You seem nervous.”

They were forty thousand feet above sea level, more than halfway to California. He hadn’t let her leave his side. She wasn’t sure it was worth the risk to try.

“Not nervous,” she said, and smiled, stretching back in her seat. “Just worried. About everyone else.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. They can handle themselves.”

“They can,” she said. “But we’ve been through a lot recently. All of us. I’ll just … feel more comfortable when we’re all safe and together, you know?”

He looked over at her. The look she once would have mistaken for fondness now looked so nefarious. “Of course,” he said. “I know. You should try to relax, though.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m trying.”

And it wasn’t a lie. There just wasn’t any way it was going to happen. She turned to look out the side window instead. Anything to avoid his eyes, and awkward conversations.

She needed Coulson to find her message. She needed them to figure out what she was going to do.

“Skye.” He interrupted her thoughts. She turned back to him, a smile once more pasted on her face. 

“You trust me, right?” he said.

“Of course,” she answered automatically, the lie slipping out easily.

“Okay,” he said. “I just want you to know that just because everything hasn’t exactly been as it seems, it doesn’t mean you can’t trust me.”

“Right,” she said, and she smiled bigger, leaning across to pet him on the leg. “Of course.”

•••

It had been the most satisfying moment of her life. “Hail Hydra,” she had spat at him from her seat at the diner’s table, and she had watched realization of what she had done wash across his face. Lying to him about how to decrypt the drive. Informing the police. Keeping him occupied so he didn’t realize until too late.

Of course it had been followed by a most unsatisfying moment, and now she was here, starting the hack, releasing all the information she had worked so hard to protect back into the hands of the people she had been trying to keep it from in the first place. And then what? Would they kill her? Probably. She wasn’t anything to any of them, even if Ward kept proclaiming otherwise. Besides, she would rather be dead than be with him.

She didn’t see him slip into the room. She thought he was back in the cockpit.

“Skye,” he said, and she froze at his voice.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She kept her gaze on her laptop, nowhere else.

“I just want to thank you.”

“Please don’t.”

“You could have killed me.”

“That would have turned me into you.” 

“Skye, look at me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Skye.”

She looked up. He looked a little worse for wear. That at least was pleasing.

“This wasn’t how I wanted things to go,” he said. 

“How fortunate for me.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“What should I be like?” she snapped. “I hate you. I _despise_ you. You are a liar and a murderer, and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I wish I could make you understand.”

“Well, you can’t. Now can you please leave?” She turned back to her hack. He didn’t speak again. When she glanced up a few moments later, he was gone.

A few minutes after that, Coulson appeared, and ten minutes past that, they were falling through the air in Lola. She should have been worried about dying, but the only thought going through her head over and over was that she wouldn’t mind if she never saw Ward again. 

•••

Too bad for her seeing Ward had to be done.

“Are you sure you can do this?” May asked her quietly, just before they headed out to Cybertek.

“If there is one thing I am sure of,” Skye said, “it’s bringing Ward down.”

Especially now with Fitz and Simmons missing. If their friends were dead … No, she couldn’t think about that. Instead she followed May out the door. They had work to do, and she knew her role well. Find out where they were keeping Mike Peterson’s son and find a way to let his father see him. Coulson would deal with Garrett. May would handle Ward. Trip would make sure the facility was contained.

She should have known that Ward would find her.

“She’s not going to kill you.” 

His voice, coming from behind her, cutting into her thoughts as she tried to interrogate the guard, making her feel instantly nauseous. 

“She had a chance to kill me before, and she couldn’t do it,” he continued, talking to the guard.

He was moving closer to her, gun pointed. 

“She hates me. A lot.”

“I feel sorry for you,” she said instantly. “Betraying the only people who gave you a chance at being a decent human being. Fitz was a hero because he still wanted to give you that chance after everything. But some people are just born evil.”

Ward didn’t seem phased. She knew he wouldn’t be.

“Yeah ... yeah, maybe they are. I have learned things about you, Skye. History. Things you would want to know. You and I are not all that different.”

If had been appropriate to snort, she would have.

“You're not the evil I was referring too,” she said instead, coldly. “Garret is evil. You’re just weak. Do everything you’re told. I hope Garret orders you to walk into traffic.”

“You're right, Skye. You woke up a weakness inside me. And for the first time in a while, I wanted something for myself. Maybe, I'll just take what I want, wake up something inside you.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Ward.”

And two seconds later, she unleashed May on him. She wanted to watch, to see the smugness and the weakness pounded out of him, but she had work to do. She turned back to the guard. 

The rest was almost easy. Finding Mike Peterson’s son. Saving him. Letting him talk to his dad. Watching as Garrett was destroyed. 

She closed her eyes as she watched Garrett fall.

It was over. Everything was over. Garrett was dead. Ward was caught. She was free.

_His lips pressed against hers, his fingers in her hair._

_“I will never hurt you,” he whispered. “I need you to believe that.”_

She opened her eyes. She needed to see him. One last time. To make sure he was going away for good. To make sure he was finally out of her life.

She handed the young boy off to Trip and headed to the main warehouse. She could hear voices. May. Coulson. Fury.

She walked in.

And froze.

Coulson was there, May was there, Fury was there. And Ward was there.

Not in cuffs or broken and beaten.

Talking. Laughing. Smiling. An arm around May.

_No._

She couldn’t help it. The cry left her mouth before she could think, the moan of a wounded animal.

They all turned, looked at her.

“Skye,” Coulson said quickly. “It’s not what you think.”

She stared at him. The room was spinning. She couldn’t breathe.

“Wha… what?” she finally managed.

“It’s okay, Skye.” It was Ward that answered. “I’m not Hydra.”


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**

“We never had this conversation. We will never have this conversation again. Everyone does what they are supposed to, and no one says another word about it until it’s over. Understood?”

Director Nick Fury looked around the room, his eyes boring into each of theirs turn by turn. It was dark in this underground safehold, cramped, but it was the only place, Fury said, where he could be a hundred percent certain they would not be compromised. 

Ward glanced at the two other people beside him. Phil Coulson. Melinda May. Then he looked back at Fury.

He knew he could do this — it was a role he had been born to play. Hadn’t he already spent his whole life doing whatever he had to do to survive? John Garrett wanted him to play the tough survivor, so he did. Nick Fury wanted him to play the loyal, obedient soldier, so he did.

But now he had to decide. To pick a side. Once and for all.

He knew what side he wanted to choose.

“I’m going to have to hurt people,” he said to the others. “Innocent people.”

“Yes,” Fury said. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. “But you will save more in the end.”

“I’m going to betray people.”

“Not the people who matter,” Coulson said.

“Are you sure there’s not another way?” Ward asked. 

“If there was,” Fury said. “We would not be here.”

••• 

It was easy for the first few months. Pretending to be someone he was. Trying not to get attached. 

“It has to look real,” Fury had said that day in the bunker. “If it doesn’t look real, it won’t work.”

“Keep your emotions in check. Don’t get attached to anyone. Don’t let anyone in,” Garrett had said to him the day Ward told him he had successfully infiltrated Coulson’s team.

Garrett had smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “They will never see it coming!” he had beamed. “I’m so proud of you!”

Skye was a complication he hadn’t expected. 

Family. Friends. They had never been his first priority. They had never been a reason to stray from the task at hand. Not even Coulson. Not even May. They were colleagues, people who had his back, people he trusted above all else.

But friends, real friends? Real SHIELD agents didn’t have friends. Natasha Romanoff had told him that once. He believed her.

And then Skye came along. 

Garrett noticed. Coulson noticed. May noticed.

“Be careful,” she had hissed in his ear the night she had first taken him back to her room. “There will be time for that afterward.”

He knew she was right. Except it wasn’t that easy.

_“I’m going to betray people.”_

_“Not the people who matter.”_

But she mattered. And he had to betray her. For awhile anyway. He wished he could tell her it wasn’t going to be what it seemed. 

She caught him one night, thinking about this, too deep in his own thoughts to realize she was there before she spoke.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He jumped. 

“Skye. I didn’t hear you. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Why aren’t you?”

He shook his head. He had been staring at his phone. He needed to send Garrett a message to tell him how it was going. The time for action was getting closer, and he couldn’t let anyone know he was wavering. 

He stuffed the phone in his pocket. “Just thinking about an old friend,” he said. It was easier than lying to her.

“Want to share?”

“Not really. He wants me to do something. It’s just … a little harder than I thought.”

Skye shrugged. “Maybe you shouldn’t do it.”

He wished that were an option. “Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s not right,” he said instead.

“Hmmm,” Skye said, and then she grinned, her whole face lighting up. “More wise words from Ward?”

“All words from Ward are wise.”

She snorted. “Yeah. Right.” And then she dropped down beside him. 

“Good thing I don’t like you for your modesty,” she said.

He smiled wryly. If only he could tell her …

“Yeah, good thing,” he said.

•••

It was easier and harder to make the choice than he feared. “Accidentally” kill a man they all thought was the Clairvoyant. Take a shot and start down the path toward what John Garrett wanted him to be. Finally slip on the mask for the part Garrett had groomed him to play but that he had long since decided he didn’t want.

Become Hydra. Betray — or pretend to betray — the people who cared about him. Betray _her_.

But then the fake Clairvoyant mentioned Centipede killing Skye, and he didn’t have to think. His finger moved. The gun sounded.

There was no going back.

Except it wasn’t that easy.

Becoming Hydra and staying Hydra were two different things. Leaving her was another one all together.

He found her staring out one the windows of the plane, watching as they drew closer and closer to the Hub.

He wasn’t supposed to do anything to ever reveal his cover, but he couldn’t do what he needed to do without at least trying. He moved closer to her, whispering in her ear.

“Skye.” 

She turned her head. Making as little movement as possible, he dropped his fingers so he could touch her wrist, silently trying to convey something he could never say out loud.

She looked scared.

“We’re going to be okay, right?” she said, and he could hear the desperation in her voice. “This is all going to be okay? We’re going to find Simmons, and we’re going to be okay?”

Her words shot straight to his heart. He leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers. He didn’t know where Garrett was right now or who was listening, but he needed to do this.

“Skye, listen to me,” he breathed. “Whatever happens out there, I need you to trust me, okay?”

She looked confused. “I do trust you.”

“I know you think you do.”

“What does that mean? Of course I …”

“Skye …” 

He needed her to stop talking. He moved his fingers, covering her mouth. 

“Things aren’t always what they seem, okay?” He said. “Just trust me.” He wanted to say more, but he was already saying too much.

“You mean like Hydra?” she whispered.

He dropped his fingers and found her hand, squeezing it. His heart squeezed in his chest.

“Something like that,” he said.

•••

It only got harder. Pretending to kill Victoria Hand (The gun only stunned her, made it appear like she was dead. He knew it would work. Garrett never dealt with body cleanup anyway.) Infiltrating the Fridge and letting loose prisoners and weapons he had helped spend so much time putting away. Showing up at Providence and trying to alter the results of the lie detector test in case Garrett ever checked up on him. Hiding the body of Koenig’s clone after he helped him escape to safety.

Making Skye think he was really a double agent who had been against her the whole time. 

It was working, too. The way she was shifting in her seat as they flew to California but pretending she wasn’t. The way her eyes kept darting around nervously. He wondered where she had left the message for Coulson. He knew she must have. Skye was the most resourceful person he knew, and he had trained her well.

“You seem nervous,” he said as they flew. He wished he could tell her she didn’t have to be.

“Not nervous,” she said, and she stretched in her seat, trying to smile. Trying to fool him. “Just worried. About everyone else.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. They can handle themselves.”

“They can,” she said. “But we’ve been through a lot recently. All of us. I’ll just … feel more comfortable when we’re all safe and together, you know?”

He wished he could tell her he knew exactly how she felt. 

“Of course,” he said. “I know. You should try to relax, though.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m trying.”

She turned to look out the window. He wasn’t ready to stop talking yet, though.

“Skye.” He waited until she turned back to him, a fake smile once more pasted all over her face. 

“You trust me, right?” he said.

“Of course.”

“Okay,” he said. “I just want you to know that just because everything hasn’t exactly been as it seems, it doesn’t mean you can’t trust me.”

“Right,” she said, and she smiled bigger, leaning across to pet him on the leg. “Of course.”

He knew she was lying. He wished he could tell her he was, too. And not in the way she was thinking.

•••

The only thing he hadn’t counted on was Garrett using Skye against him. Forcing her to choose to save his life when she clearly didn’t want to. But what was worse was the look in her eyes after she finally made her choice.

_“I’m going to betray people.”_

_“Not the people who matter.”_

But she mattered. And he had a horrible feeling he might have gone too far. 

He found her later, working on releasing the hack on the data.

“Skye,” he said, and he saw her freeze.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” 

“I just want to thank you.” He wanted to do more than that, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

“Please don’t.”

“You could have killed me.”

“That would have turned me into you.” 

“Skye, look at me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Skye.”

She looked up. The disgust and pain in her eyes almost knocked his breath away.

“This wasn’t how I wanted things to go,” he said. That much was more true than she would ever know.

“How fortunate for me.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“What should I be like?” she snapped. “I hate you. I _despise_ you. You are a liar and a murderer, and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I wish I could make you understand.”

“Well, you can’t. Now can you please leave?” She turned back to her hack. There was nothing left he could say to make this better. He spun around and walked away. 

The next time he saw her was at the Cybertek facility. He pointed a gun at her head and tried to pretend he didn’t care about her. He fought May and pretended he wanted to hurt her. He knelt on the ground with his hands tied behind his back and glared at everyone while the final battle raged. 

And then it ended. 

A final blow from Mike Peterson. 

He let out a sigh, the weight of the world finally lifting from his shoulders. May yanked at his arm, tugging him up. He pretended to struggle, in case anyone was still watching. She dragged him to Fury and Coulson. They waited until the guards had cleared out, until Garrett’s body had been removed, then May finally untied him.

He closed his eyes, enjoying the moment. A hand clapped him on the shoulder.

He opened his eyes to see Fury grinning at him. “You did it,” he said. “Without you tracking him, we never would have gotten him.”

“He was crazier than I feared by the end.”

“Yeah,” Fury said. “We noticed that. But it’s over.”

“Thank god,” Melinda said.

A noise sounded from the other side of the room. A cry. Like a wounded animal.

They all turned.

Skye.

She was standing there, staring at them, her face pale, her eyes wide. She looked like she was going to pass out, or be sick, or both.

This was not good.

“Skye.” Coulson spoke first, his voice sounding urgent. “It’s not what you think.”

She just stared at them, her eyes moving from person to person.

“Wha… what?” she finally managed.

“It’s okay, Skye.” He couldn’t take it any longer. He had to tell her. “I’m not Hydra. I never was.”

She turned around and ran out of the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART THREE**

They sat in the kitchen, the three of them, staring at a plate of cookies and donuts that no one was eating.

It had been two days and a flight across the country, but Skye still couldn’t wrap her head around everything that had happened. Jemma (who had arrived at the new bunker shortly after they did, having been informed by Fury about Ward’s true status) and Trip were the only two people she had talked to in that time, although the others had tried to talk to her.

“We couldn’t tell you,” Coulson had said. “It was the only way to keep you safe. We needed it to look real.”

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Ward had said. “You have to believe me, Skye.”

But she didn’t know what she believed. She looked up at Jemma and Trip now. They had been alone in the kitchen for an hour, the most time yet they’d had uninterrupted. 

“You’re sure Fitz is going to be okay?” Skye asked Jemma, more to just say something at all. She was tired of being quiet.

“They assure me he is,” Jemma said. She was picking at a cookie, breaking it apart into tiny crumbs.

“He could have died because of them,” Skye said. 

“If Ward was Hydra for real, he would have killed them both on the spot,” Trip said. Skye narrowed her eyes at him.

“That’s his story,” she said. Ward had already told it to her six times.

“I believe him,” Trip said.

“I don’t,” Skye said.

“You don’t?” Trip said, “Or you don’t want to?”

She glared at him. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“Oh,” Jemma said, interrupting them. “I don’t want there to be sides.”

“I don’t know how there can’t be,” Skye said. “They _lied_ to us. For months. They had this planned from before we ever became a team and they _hid_ it from us. We could have … we could have died. This could have gone so bad.”

“It didn’t,” Trip said.

“It doesn’t excuse it.” She shook her head. “How do we ever trust them again after this?”

Trip shrugged. “That I don’t know,” he said, and they all fell silent again.

•••

She couldn’t avoid him forever. And after two more days, she decided she didn’t want to.

She knocked on the door to his room and waited for him to open it.

“Skye,” he said, and he looked genuinely surprised. At least, she assumed it was genuine. She really wasn’t sure anymore.

“Can I come in?”

Ward nodded. “Of course.” He opened the door wider and gestured her in. There was no place to sit except the bed so she perched on the end. He stood in front of her, hands in his pockets, staring at her.

“You lied to me,” she said. She didn’t have a better way to start. “For months. You pretended to be someone you weren’t. And then you pretended some more. You made me think one thing about you, and then another, and now you’re telling me they are both a lie. And yet we’re supposed to be a team and I’m supposed to trust you — _them_ — and how I do that if I don’t know if you’re lying to me?”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“But how do I know that?”

He sighed and ran a hand across his face. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Tell me why,” she said.

“Why what?”

“Why you did it? Pretended to be Hydra. I need to know.”

He nodded. “That’s fair,” he said, and he took a deep breath. 

“I owed John Garrett everything,” he started. “At least I thought I did. My family life … it was not good. What I told you, it was all true. And Garrett found me. Recruited me. I thought he saved me. He taught me to survive. He taught me I didn’t need anyone else. And then he taught me about Hydra.”

Skye shifted. “Go on,” she said.

“I didn’t know what that meant,” he said. “I didn’t understand the implications. And then he brought me into SHIELD. And I did some research. And I realized the truth.”

He paused again.

“I didn’t know how to break away from Garrett,” he said. “Not until I met Melinda. And she introduced me to Coulson. And when Fury brought us the plan …”

He spread his hands out. “I was in too deep with Garrett,” he said. “Fury said if I did this, it would help end it and it would get me out. So I did it.”

He walked over to where she sat at the end of the bed and knelt down in front of her, taking her hand.

“But I swear, Skye,” he said, “everything I ever said to you was true. I had to pretend to be something I’m not, but how I was with you. It wasn’t an act. I need you to believe me.”

She reached up, placed her hand on his cheek. 

“I’m scared to.”

“I know.”

“What I felt for you … it was real,” she whispered. “And then it got twisted around and I _hated_ you, and now …”

“And now what?”

“Now I don’t know how to feel.”

He lifted his hand, pressing it over her hand on his face. With his other, he reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Then he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against hers.

She closed her eyes. 

Could she trust him? 

He kissed her deeper, put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her backward so she was lying on her back on the bed.

Should she trust him?

Her fingers found the bottom of his shirt and yanked. He pulled away from her to shed it completely.

Did it even matter right now?

His fingers found her jeans and slipped the buttons loose, pulling down the zipper. She lifted her hips and let him pull them off.

He wasn’t Hydra.

He pushed her underwear aside, his fingers brushing against her center. He leaned back in to kiss her.

He wasn’t Hydra.

He slipped a finger inside her. She arched her back at his touch.

Right?

••• 

She slipped out once he was asleep. She needed to think. She also needed to talk to everyone. Which she did the next morning at breakfast.

“If we’re going to be a team,” she said once she had everyone’s attention. “We have to be able to trust each other.”

One by one, they all nodded — Ward, May, Coulson, Jemma, Trip.

“We only lied ..” Coulson started, but Skye shook her head.

“The greater good. Compartmentalizing. The ends justifying the means. All that crap. No more. No lies. At least not with each other. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.”

“Here, here,” Jemma said, and Trip laughed.

“That’s fair,” May said.

“That’s more than fair,” Coulson said. “No more lies.”

Skye turned to Ward. He hadn’t said anything yet.

“Okay?” she asked.

He nodded. 

“Yes. But I have to know.” He stared at her for a moment before continuing. “What does this mean for us?” The worry in his eyes was evident. And for the first time since everything had happened, she felt she could learn to trust him completely again.

Someday.

He was still staring at her. She almost contemplated making him wait, just to play with him. Instead she walked over to him and kissed him.

“It means you better not ever lie to me again,” she said. “Or I am out.”

His lips crashing hard against hers told her he agreed.

“Right,” Coulson said once they broke apart. “First rule of SHIELD 2.0. No PDA. _Any_ where.”


End file.
